|
|
At
The Edge of Honor
The year is
1863. The American Civil War is leaving its bloody trail
across the nation and Peter Wake, a third generation New
England schooner sailor, is out of work and facing
conscription.
"If you've got to go to war, son, go as a sailor.
Soldiers live and die in the mud," is the advice
from his father. Wake follows that advice and joins the
U.S. Navy as a volunteer officer. He is sent to the East
Gulf Blockading Squadron, based at Key West, an island
off the extreme southern end of Florida.
He is assigned command of the Rosalie, a small
armed sloop that only months before had been a enemy
blockade-runner in South Carolina. Aboard his new
command, Wake learns that the wartime naval glories and
exploits he read about in the northern papers don't exist
down on the steamy coasts of subtropical Florida. What he
finds instead, is a dirty little guerrilla war where
nothing is as it first appears, and every decision he
makes has unforeseen consequences. An experienced seaman
and former merchant marine officer, Wake also learns that
a naval officer has to be more than a good sailor, for he
carries a special burden in war-the burden of
intentionally sending his men into harms way.
Wake's exploits earn him the recognition of the
squadron's senior leadership , and he is ordered on
special missions to ascertain intelligence of Confederate
operations in the shadowy and sinister world of Havana,
center of the Spanish Empire in the Caribbean, and the
remote outer islands of the British Bahamas.
International intrigue has its own murky reefs and
shoals, giving Wake few options and many dangers , as he
overcomes situations he would never have dreamed of only
months before, while on a schooner in New England.
The turmoil in Wake's life comes not only from the sea
and the enemy. He falls hopelessly , and foolishly, in
love with Linda Donahue, the daughter of a Key West
pro-Confederate zealot. Both lovers face the antipathy of
their peers for having an affair with the
"enemy," but cling to each other as the only
hope of tranquillity in an insane world at war.
Throughout it all, Peter Wake demonstrates that most
salient of American characteristics, the ability to adapt
and overcome incredible challenges. It is while facing
those challenges, both afloat and ashore, that Peter Wake
makes decisions that take him right up to the edge of
honor.
|
|
|
|
|
Point
of Honor
Peter Wake
has made his mark upon the United States Navy's East Gulf
Blockading Squadron, received a promotion, and been given
a larger command, the schooner St. James. Wake
proceeds to fulfill his assignments, but soon finds
himself afoul of senior officers on his own side,
political appointees to Army commands whose mistakes are
measured in blood.
His personal life takes a new turn, as
love conquers animosity in a unique way that only Key
West could provide. His lover becomes the anchor and soul
of his life, as Wake continues to accomplish daunting
missions, including some that have no apparent solution.
Wake's
reputation as an intelligent officer who can face any
situation and overcome it, gets its greatest challenge to
date, as he puts everything on the
line. . .all for a
point of honor.
|
|
|
|

|
Honorable
Mention
Peter Wake's hopes for
a quick and peaceful end to the Civil War
disappear in the desperate turmoil of 1865 Florida and the Caribbean.
Old acquaintances, both friend and adversary, come back into Wake's
life
in ways he didn't anticipate, while murky intrigues of sinister
characters keep the danger real and the future uncertain. And of
course,
as always, Peter Wake is the one man that makes things happen when no
one else can.
|
|
|
|


|
A
Dishonorable Few
The
newest novel of the exploits of Peter Wake, USN, is now out and in
distribution to stores everywhere. The year is 1869 and Wake is ending
his very first tour of shore duty at Pensacola Navy Yard. He’ll be
heading down into Central America as executive officer aboard a gunboat
on a mission to find and end the maniacal rampage of a former US naval
officer who became a mercenary, then turned bad—very bad.
The
search takes Wake from the perilous alleys of Cartagena, Colombia, and
the fetid jungles of Panama—to the Moskito Coast of Nicaragua and the
smoky villages of Haiti. Along the way, he comes across cutthroats in
Colombia, brave Indios in Panama, good men in the Royal Navy of Great
Britain and the Spanish Navy, two-faced politicians from several
countries, the most evil enemy he has ever faced, and a treacherous man
in his own ship. Even while worrying about his marriage back home, he
braves a daring rescue attempt on a lee-shore, shot and shell from
desperate pirates, uncharted reefs on desolate coasts, international
intrigue involving the potential canal across the Isthmus, a moribund
American naval administration, and in the end, his own court-martial in
Washington, D.C.
In
researching and writing this novel I made a six-week, 10,000-mile voyage
aboard a German freighter along the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of
South America. On that voyage I experienced modern pirates attempt to
board the ship, some very unsavory characters ashore in Colombia, a
Force-9 storm at sea, and numerous other adventures. For this novel
I’ve also relied upon my experiences in Panama during an expedition
about nine years ago, during which I journeyed through the jungle to
Porto Bello and made my way to the remote San Blas coast, where I spent
time with the fascinating Cuna Indians.
This
novel was exciting for me to write and I am very happy to report that
the first critics have had wonderful things to say—the reviews will be
posted here a little later.
|
|
|
|
|

|
An
Affair of Honor
At the beginning of this fifth novel in Robert N.
Macomber's award winning Honor Series, it's December 1873 and
Lieutenant Peter Wake is the executive officer of the USS
Omaha on dreary patrol in the West Indies. Lonely
for his family, he is looking forward to returning home to
Pensacola in a few months and rekindling his troubled marriage
with Linda.
But fate has other plans for Wake. He runs afoul of the
Royal Navy in Antiqua, and is declared a spy when he stumbles
on shocking new information about a British ship there.
A beautiful French woman enters his life in Martinique.
Then he's suddenly sent off on staff assignment to Europe,
where he is soon immersed in the cynical swirl of Old World
politics.
After meeting up with one Peter Sharpe Allen, a Royal Marine
who talks him into a side trip in Seville, Wake finds himself
running for his life after getting embroiled in Spanish
politics. He faces diplomatic intrigue in Genoa and is
caught up in French, German, and British affairs of state in a
castle down the coast at Porto Fino. Then his real test
comes when he and his old friend, Sean Rork are sent on a
no-win mission to rescue missionaries in northern Africa.
Not the least of his troubles is Madame Catherine Faber de
Champlain, wife of a French diplomat. Her many charms
involve Peter Wake in an affair of honor.
|
|


|
A
Different Kind of Honor
It’s
1879 and Lt. Cmdr. Peter Wake, U.S.N., is on special assignment
as the official American neutral naval observer to the War of
the Pacific raging along the west coast of South America. Chile,
having invaded the coast of Bolivia, has gone on to overrun Peru
and controls the entire southeastern Pacific region. Washington,
concerned over European involvement in the war and the French
effort to build a canal through Panama, has sent Wake to observe
not only the naval war, but the political intrigues of the
region as well.
During
Wake’s dangerous mission—as part naval observer, part
diplomat, and part spy—he will witness history’s first
battle between ocean-going ironclads, ride the world’s first
deep-diving submarine, face his first machine guns in combat,
discover an unlikely bond with an international brotherhood,
advise the French trying to build the Panama Canal, and run for
his life in the Catacombs of the Dead in Lima, Peru.
In
the War of the Pacific, Peter Wake confronts a very different
kind of honor, one that will continue to haunt him. And while he
is away, Wake’s family back home in Washington copes with
their own catastrophic
event—one that will eventually change all of their lives
forever.
|
|
|
All Book
Reviews
|
|